Movie review: ‘San Andreas’

That San Andreas, a disaster film starring Dwayne Johnson, is bad should not surprise anyone. It is about what happens when a series of massive earthquakes caused by the great fault San Andreas – topping at 9.6 on the Richter scale – destroy California and how professional rescuer Ray (Johnson) saves his family in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The special effects are impressive, with every building in downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco destroyed in absurdly detailed, absurdly violent ways. But the screenplay is dumb where it isn’t utterly implausible. No earthquake could do what these in San Andreas do, and characters are forced to make grandiose pronouncements, sometimes directly into the camera. That said, San Andreas is exactly what you’ll expect, with terrible dialogue easily dubbed for audiences overseas, a great deal of mostly exciting action, and a sort of happy ending.